The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) said it secured P10.8 billion worth of investments for expansion projects of Japanese companies during a five-day outbound mission to Tokyo.
PEZA participated in an investment forum organized by junca Global Holdings and a series of business-to-business (B2B) meetings from Aug. 28 to Sept. 2, 2023.
The forum capitalized on investment leads sought by PEZA, and those from Sumitomo Corp. and the First Philippines Industrial Park Inc., one of PEZA’s leading developer-operators.
PEZA said it explored new strategic areas of collaboration with Kiraboshi Bank, one of the leading regional banks in Tokyo, and with the Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, JAPAN (SME Support, JAPAN), a government agency under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in charge of supporting the needs of Japanese SMEs.
PEZA signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with NEOJAPAN that would allow it to use NEOJAPAN’s desknet’s NEO and Appsuite, free of charge to PEZA until the end of 2023.
“Our top country investor, Japan, has a total of P766.550 billion investments from 1995 to June 2023, making up for the 27.37 percent of PEZA’s overall investments by country. This investment comes from 877 Japanese locators with 339,751 direct employments as of May 2023 and exports of $6.370 billion from January to May this year,” said PEZA director-general Tereso Panga.
He said “2023 is proving to mark the significant rise of the semiconductor industry with several industry leaders proceeding with their expansion plans to address the projected demand in their products due to the rise of the electronic vehicle industry and steady technological advancements in the downsizing of gadgets and their parts.”
“PEZA will make sure that the country will be poised to receive these investments as we have a small window to get the manufacturing of new high-tech products into the Philippines given the competitiveness of the industry,” Panga said.
The mission allowed PEZA to secure P10.8 billion in investment commitments from Terumo Corporation (P 1 billion), Taiyo Yuden (P1.6 billion), TDK Corp. (P7.2 billion) and Almex Technologies (P1 billion).
Panga’s statement is supported by the P111.207 billion in investments already approved by the PEZA board in the first nine months of 2023, and expansion announcements by some of PEZA’s biggest locators such as Knowles (Philippines) Electronics Corp., Terumo, Wipro Philippines Inc. and Isla Import Terminals Inc.
“Taiyo Yuden CO., LTD. has an investment plan to operate their business in Taiyo Yuden [Philippines], Inc. We are proud to have locators such as Taiyo Yuden grow inside PEZA’s ecosystem since 1989. The ongoing investment plan covers the calendar year 2023-2024, with the total investment amounting to P1.6 billion. This signifies a continued era of trust and confidence in the country’s investment facilitation climate,” he said.